Indirect structural crosslinguistic influence in early Catalan-Spanish bilinguals in adulthood
This study reports an oral production experiment investigating the expression of existentiality in the Catalan of adult Catalan-Spanish early bilinguals (N = 58) with comparable proficiencies but different language dominance. The results show qualitative differences among the bilinguals in existenti...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ddd.uab.cat:294885 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/294885 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1017/S0142716421000308 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Bilingualism Catalan Crosslinguistic influence Estar Existential sentences Haver-hi Language dominance Partitive clitics Ser |
| Sumario: | This study reports an oral production experiment investigating the expression of existentiality in the Catalan of adult Catalan-Spanish early bilinguals (N = 58) with comparable proficiencies but different language dominance. The results show qualitative differences among the bilinguals in existential predicate selection and in their supply of partitive pronouns, modulated by language dominance. Balanced Bilinguals as well as Spanish-dominant bilinguals significantly produced more estar (in detriment of ser-hi and haver-hi) not only in locative contexts, where Catalan already presents optionality regulated by semantic differences, but also in existential constructions, where this optionality does not exist. We argue for indirect crosslinguistic influence (CLI), when the bilingual perceives certain structural overlap within constructions, mediating the influence from one structure to another one and expanding the limits of CLI. The qualitative differences found among bilinguals challenge the idea of a bilingualism continuum in Catalan-Spanish bilingualism with an identical mental representation. |
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